Annie's Virtual Pre-Grouping, Grouping and BR Layouts & Workbench

[Annie]

1 hour ago, sncf231e said:

This looks like a 2-4-0. I thought it was supposed to be a 0-6-0 (like my GER (not an E22)):

Regards

Fred

Hello Fred your GER engine isn't an E22.  According to its number it's an R24. An E22 is smaller and lighter in weight than a R24. The E22's were built specifically for working over lightly laid branchlines  and lines that had tight curves.  Most of the E22's at one time or another had the coupling rods for the leading wheels removed as it gave them a more lively performance on light suburban work such as the Blackwall line in London.  It was also believed that removing the front coupling rods enabled them to cope with tight radius curves. 

 

[Annie]

A new arrival at Moxbury shed.  No.151 will be mostly working on the Maglaw branch and generally being useful on the lines around Moxbury.

 

 

A test run for No.157 on the Tenpenny branch.  A bit naughty really since it's not a skirted tram engine.  I took quite a few snaps, but I'll only show you some of them so your eyes won't glaze over.  My new E22's run very well and I'm absolutely delighted with them.  After seeing how well they have turned out I've asked Connor to make me a GER class '209' Neilson saddle tank next.

 

 

Mosston on Sea.

 

 

 

Leaving Nelson's Crossing.

 

Roadside running to Lockes Soak.

 

[Annie]

Some time ago Ray Whiley from the creator group gave me a copy of his maltings construction set and I always meant to set it up at Windweather on my Norfolk layout.  A truly lovely gentleman Ray was a Norfolk lad and spent much of his younger days taking photos of interesting buildings and making digital models of them.

I think I've managed to assemble the new Windweather Maltings into some kind of sensible configuration and it should help to provide some more goods traffic in addition to that from the harbour.

 

 

The Windweather Tramway and the Windweather Loop Line have been a bit neglected lately on my TRS22 Norfolk layout.  Most of the Affiliated (Imaginary) Railway Companies smaller engines that had jobs to do around Moxbury and Bluebell Magna have been displaced by the new GER arrivals to the sub sheds at Barrow Hills, Windweather and Tenpenny Wharf so it's well and truly time that I set to and sorted out some new timetabling scheduling for the Windweather section.

[Annie]

Mid Afternoon Locomotive Cheer Up Picture:  I know nothing at all about this picture except that I like it.  Certainly plenty of interesting details on view.  I particularly like that dumb buffered wagon that's been converted into a tender and shunter's truck.

 

[Edwardian]

2 hours ago, Annie said:

Mid Afternoon Locomotive Cheer Up Picture:  I know nothing at all about this picture except that I like it.  Certainly plenty of interesting details on view.  I particularly like that dumb buffered wagon that's been converted into a tender and shunter's truck.

 

 

 

Well, I guess your choice is Sussex or Edingburgh.

 

I'm going to plump for Edinburgh on the basis that this looks like a NBR Class G 'pug', or, perhaps, a Caley Class 264 pug because the order of the boiler fittings suggests that, though the cab suggests the NBR version to me!

 

 

Edited August 10, 2023 by Edwardian

[Annie]

16 minutes ago, Edwardian said:

Well, I guess your choice is Sussex or Edinburgh.

 

I'm going to plump for Edinburgh on the basis that this looks like a NBR Class G 'pug'.

I think picking Sussex wouldn't be winner, - and Edinburgh seems to be a lot more likely.  The chap standing in front of the shunters truck/tender isn't helping any since it would be nice to be able to read what's written on its side.  The 'Pug' is another example of a small and useful locomotive that's missing from Trainz as most 3D digital locomotive builders seem to be addicted to making express engines.

I do really like that dumb buffered two plank wagon though.  Going by the height of Mr Word Blocker Man it looks like a 6ft wheelbase.

Edited August 10, 2023 by Annie
can't spell for toffee

[Northroader]

North British.

 

http://www.edinphoto.org.uk/1_edin_t/1_edinburgh_transport_railways_-_saint_leonards_sidings_1959_r1010b.htm

[Edwardian]

2 minutes ago, Northroader said:

North British.

 

http://www.edinphoto.org.uk/1_edin_t/1_edinburgh_transport_railways_-_saint_leonards_sidings_1959_r1010b.htm

 

Yes, the location and the cab suggests NBR, and that's what I'd choose, but I have never seen a picture of either a Class G, which the loco otherwise resembles, or a Neilson industrial equivalent with the two boiler fittings in that order. That's a Caley Pug thing, though it otherwise does not resemble a Caley pug as I think both the Drummond class and the constituent predecessors had a different cab to the NBR/industiral versions.

 

Besides, as you say, thre location, inferred from the tender/shunting truck, is a NBR one so far as I understand.  There is a long 'bonded stores' building shown on old maps of St Leonards, which seems to have had extensive goods and coal sidings that could readily account for the presence of such a locomotive. I assume these bonded stores are the surviving stone warehouse building you picture, but I have been unable to reconcile it with the apparently rendered and canopied building in Annie's picture. 

[Northroader]

The engine is numbered in the 1xxx series, which the NBR used for duplicate numbers of old engines, so it could have had any number of origins. I’m afraid I’ve sold or junked all the information that I had on such things.

 

The signal box is the right sort of size to go with an 0-4-0:

Edited August 10, 2023 by Northroader

[Annie]

17 minutes ago, Northroader said:

The signal box is the right sort of size to go with an 0-4-0:

That is an impossibly cute signal box.

[Caley Jim]

10 hours ago, Northroader said:

North British.

 

http://www.edinphoto.org.uk/1_edin_t/1_edinburgh_transport_railways_-_saint_leonards_sidings_1959_r1010b.htm

Agreed.  Definitely not CR.  The number plate's all wrong for a start as is the tender.

Edited August 10, 2023 by Caley Jim
Typo

[Annie]

A couple of test snaps of No.066 working the morning passenger service after changing the graphics card in my CoolerMaster computer and doing some other maintenance stuff.  I've been doing some experiments with running Trainz in Linux on a spare HP Xeon computer that wasn't being used for anything and that seems to be working out alright so far.

I got my COVID booster jab and 'flu jab last week and that's gone and bowled me for six like it always does, but it's better than me catching the plague again.

 

 

 

 

[Annie]

I made a start with attempting to set up the passenger services from the Maglaw branch and while it's more or less working it could do with some refinement.  No.157 proved to be an able little locomotive with a commediably brisk performance, though if it's permitted to have its own way wow can it ever burn coal!

 

Heading away from the hidden in plain sight fiddle yard at Maglaw.

 

 

Arriving at Maglaw Bridge Halt.  I'm not entirely sure about the four 6w coach set formation, - Brk 3rd - luggage Composite - 3rd - Brk 3rd.  Parcel traffic on passenger trains has nearly always been a feature of my railways, but the 6 wheelers might be better exchanged for 4 wheelers.

 

 

Heading towards the junction.

 

 

On the way to (faux) Bunbury.

 

 

And arrival at (faux) Bunbury.

 

 

A quick snap taken at Moxbury.

 

Edited August 14, 2023 by Annie
Um.........

[eheaps]

Indulging in a little fiction as IoMR number 4 meets it's big cousin from London. 🇮🇲 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 🦚

 

The Isle of Man loco should be available in Trainz as soon as they fix the server problems and I can upload it...

 

[Annie]

11 hours ago, eheaps said:

Indulging in a little fiction as IoMR number 4 meets it's big cousin from London. 🇮🇲 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 🦚

 

The Isle of Man loco should be available in Trainz as soon as they fix the server problems and I can upload it...

Very nice work as usual Ed.  I know Steve Flanders did some Isle of Man models some time ago and there are some Isle of Man backscenes on the DLS, but I don't remember ever seeing any Isle of Man Trainz layouts anywhere.  Is this a new project for you ?

Edited August 15, 2023 by Annie
Um.........

[eheaps]

23 minutes ago, Annie said:

Is this a new project for you ?

 

It's actually an old project! I originally started this model 8 years ago, but never finished.  A recent trip to the Isle of Man finally inspired me to finally finish it off.

[Annie]

It's (faux) Bunbury's turn to get some love since not much at all has been done to it since it was put together in TS2012.  When my Norfolk layout was moved into TS2019 and then TRS22 the trees were changed for better models and that was about it.  Not surprisingly there were all kinds of things that I meant to tidy up a bit or finish off and never got to, - and it was only now that I'd returned to (faux) Bunbury to make some track and signal changes to enable local passenger services to work in and out of the station in a proper manner that I began to notice things that needed doing.  The signal box for one thing didn't even have the station's name on it and there were plenty of other things as well such as no roadway to reach the goods shed and the cattle dock looking completely unconvincing as a functional item.

The township at (faux) Bunbury is largely a background piece, but even so it looked a bit bare and unfinished so it got some tidying up as well.  looking at the second sparrowcam snap I took I can see I managed to miss properly fixing up the gap in the fence behind the station and no doubt there's still other odd bits as well.  I had wondered about putting in a bay platform at (faux) Bunbury, but I haven't made up my mind about that yet.

 

 

[Annie]

I moved the signal box at (faux) Bunbury because it wasn't in the best position where it was before.  If the new platform bay goes ahead it's going at the same end where the signal box isn't now.  Having a bay platform there will be very useful, - it's just that I don't like having to rebuild and rearrange station platforms as it's always a lot of work to get them looking all nice and neat and tidy again.

 

[Annie]

I wasn't all that happy with Bunbury's signal box.  Its new position was better, but it still gave a not very good view of the station and the goods yard.

I went off hunting about and I found an older model of a GNR signal box from Trainz TS2009 intended for Retford Thrumpton.  Not the most perfect model, but it had the height I needed and a lever frame that looked like it had enough levers to suit (faux) Bunbury after the additions to pointwork and signalling I'd made.  A quick coat of GER signal box paintwork and who would know its origins.  

Of course now that I've done one signal box in GER colours I'm going to have to do the rest of them as the GER signal box I normally use is painted in LNER colours which I've been meaning to do something about for ages.

 

 

Edited August 19, 2023 by Annie
Um.........

[Annie]

The actual prototype signal box at Retford Thrumpton.  Nice to see it's a survivor.

 

Retford Thrumpton Signal Box by Pete Hawkins, on Flickr

[Annie]

2 hours ago, Annie said:

The actual prototype signal box at Retford Thrumpton.  Nice to see it's a survivor.

After doing some Goggling around I discovered that the model I have was inaccurately based on the prototype signal box after it had lost its lever frame and had been fitted up with an entirely electronic signalling system.  Apparently Network Rail wanted to put in a completely modern building beside the original grade 2 listed GNR station building, but to their horror they discovered that they had inadvertently sold the land to the local council.  Their only option was to put all the new signalling equipment into the still surviving GNR signal box, - so against all odds it was saved from demolition (Yay!).

So if I want to be picky about it the new signal box at (faux) Bunbury isn't really a proper model of a GNR signal box afterall and I can say that the old Moxbury & Barrow Hills Extension Railway Co. built it back some time in the 1890s.

 

Before conversion to all electronic gubbins.

 

Retford Thrumpton Signalbox by dave, on Flickr

 

[Caley Jim]

Remember that the position of the signal box was not only governed by visibility for the bobby, but by proximity to the majority of the turnouts. There were limits laid down as to how long rodding runs could be. These gradually increased through time. Not at home this week so can't quote the distances. 

 

Jim 

[Annie]

31 minutes ago, Caley Jim said:

Remember that the position of the signal box was not only governed by visibility for the bobby, but by proximity to the majority of the turnouts. There were limits laid down as to how long rodding runs could be. These gradually increased through time. Not at home this week so can't quote the distances. 

 

Jim 

Yes a very good point Jim.  One of the reasons why I moved the signal box to the east side of the station was that the turnouts furthest away from the station on the eastern side were too far away from the signal box where I'd originally sited it on the western side of the station.

Where the new signal box is now manages to cover all bases with regard to visibility and the length of the turnout rodding runs which makes me very happy.

[Annie]

14 hours ago, Caley Jim said:

Remember that the position of the signal box was not only governed by visibility for the bobby, but by proximity to the majority of the turnouts. There were limits laid down as to how long rodding runs could be. These gradually increased through time. Not at home this week so can't quote the distances. 

 

Jim 

I found my copy of the 1892 BoT regulations and this is what they have to say......

 

'The limit of distance from levers working points to be 180 yards in the case of facing points, and 300 yards in the case of trailing points on the mainline, or safety points of sidings.'

 

It's rare for me to use facing points on a double tracked line, but it's still good to know what the BoT regulations are for them.  I would imagine that on single tracked lines the 180 yard rule would be the one to keep in mind.

[Annie]

Well it's all good in this direction, but I'm going to need to put in a smaller signal box by the level crossing at the western end of the station yard to take care of the crossover and goods yard entry pointwork as well as the outer home signals & etc